July 2016

Anime has risen over the last decade from a relatively obscure niche to a staple of pop culture. If you want to watch the latest series from Japan, you no longer have to go to your local VHS shop and hope that they have it in stock. Now, you can find any show you want, watch anything you want, whenever you want. In fact, anime is now so popular that people have written entire books filled with essays on the subject. I remember reading one, a long time ago, and one essay in particular. It //

You start at work. In the morning meeting. Right opposite you sits Derek. Derek is nice. Bakes a cake for every office function, cuts you an extra-large piece, whether you want it or not, and then keeps checking your plate until you quietly feed its contents to the office plant. Still, if you lifted his slightly crumpled shirt, you would see the coagulated extra twenty pounds of “Who needs the gym? I take the stairs. Twice last month,” and not the adorable vertical depressions of //

You might have noticed that the majority of current media consists of boring or outdated plots or that there is a severe lack of representation for marginalized groups, despite the many changes to society in the last few years. We still see movies with the nagging wife/useless husband dynamic or sitcom jokes about how girls don’t visit comic book stores. If you have noticed this, you’re not the only one. With sales dropping and more consumers losing interest, why is the media industry still //

It would be easy to dismiss Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters as just another 21st century remake. The sentiment behind the film is similar to other recent reimaginings: tap into viewers’ childhood nostalgia by updating familiar material with modern actors, special effects and pop culture references, creating a work that bridges two generations of moviegoers. It’s the rationale behind the redos of fellow ‘80s genre hits Robocop, Red Dawn and The Thing (technically a prequel, but structured like //

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FAN/FIC is an online magazine for fanfic readers and writers. We publish compelling articles and personal essays about fan culture, practical advice on how to improve your craft, and interviews with people in the community.